Digicel ad-blocker ‘to help force advertising shift’

Digicel’s move to block ads on customers’ phones across its entire network is part of a wider shift that will become more pronounced in the coming months and force a fundamental change in advertising, according to a leading expert.

The Caribbean mobile operator owned by Denis O’Brien became the first network to employ ad-blocking software as standard on its network, a move that follows Apple’s roll-out of an ad-blocker option with its latest software update.

The moves signal a major shift in a “tacit agreement” that has existed online between users, publishers, and advertisers since the beginning of the internet, according to Digital Marketing Institute co-founder Ian Dodson.

“It’s really indicative of a big shift we’re going to see on the internet over the next 18 months to two years.

"The web has been built for the first 20 years of its existence on… a tacit agreement that ‘if you read content and you’re reading it for free, you know we’re going to put ads around it and that’s how we make our money to keep giving you content’,” Mr Dodson said.

Digicel is hoping the move will encourage the likes of Google, Yahoo, and Facebook to enter into revenue-sharing agreements while also saying it is in the interest of customers whose data plans are eaten into by online ads.

If enough carriers followed suit in sufficient numbers you could see Google coming to the table with revenue-sharing offers but for the time being that seems unlikely, Mr Dodson said.

The biggest issue at play is stopp-ing the major advertising firms using its network free of charge, though, according to Dublin-based advertising strategist Shane O’Leary.

Jamaica to host Digicel’s battle with Google and Facebook https://t.co/IH3ohu3ONu

— Silicon Republic (@siliconrepublic) October 1, 2015

“Digicel are positioning this almost as a ‘noble’ move, and while there may be some merit in that, I would imagine that a bigger issue for them is stopping advertising companies (Google, Facebook and Yahoo have been specifically mentioned) taking up quite substantial amounts of bandwidth and making profit on the back of that,” Mr O’Leary said.

While fewer ads make for a more enjoyable user experience, it poses major problems for online publishers and advertisers.

“Less cluttered and intrusive web pages definitely mean a better user experience, but there are two potential issues. Firstly, publishers in the Caribbean and South Pacific that rely on an ad-supported model will lose revenue from this.

"One way or another, it is advertising that pays for much of the content on the web,” Mr O’Leary said.

“Secondly, there are concerns from industry watchers about net neutrality. In the future, if there was a decision to allow certain companies pay to circumnavigate the ban on ads it would result in questions around freedom and competition.”